Many of us, the fans, may just be able to help the Mountain West schools, literally. It's a longshot, but here is my logic: Right now, almost nobody watches The Mtn. except for football and basketball games. If we start watching the shows, then the network can report more viewers which helps with advertising and also helps with showing Comcast why the reach of The Mtn. needs to be bigger.
The advertising will in turn make the network quality better and give even more reason for Comcast to make The Mtn. a channel available nationally on their cable service. That creates a huge jump in subscribers to The Mtn. (TowerPower pointed this out to me in another thread. People don't have to subscribe specifically to The Mtn, all they have to do is subscribe to the package Comcast offers it with. i.e. With the new reach in Atlanta, The Mtn. is in the same package as NFL Redzone. Without knowing it, tons of people will subscribe to The Mtn. as well as NFL Redzone and the MWC makes money off of it. Put that on a national scale with the largest cable provider in the nation and the amount of money made off of subscribers jumps through the roof) that in turn actually helps provide money to the schools we consider ourselves fans of.
If there is an issue with that logic, please point that out in the comments for me as I am not even sure that us watching more of The Mtn. will actually follow this train of thought.
With that, here is today's review of this week's installment of Stories of the Mountain West.
Alright, since this is a grade system, that means I have to have a series of things to grade on. Here is my grading rubric:
| Graphics | How well the graphics look. i.e. how good are the video clips, do they have good statistics, do the graphics stand out? |
| Analysis | How much does the analysis make sense? Does it seem like the analysts are saying something you and I have already come up with or is it something that's new? |
| Quality of Interview Questions | Are they questions that everyone is wondering or are they meaningless? |
| Smoothness of Show | How smooth is the transition between camera angles, in and out of commercials and graphics? |
Graphics:
The graphics were great, the video clips seemed to be endless and the stats rolled on. The graphics stood out well enough. What really impressed me about the graphics was simply the quality. Many people have rightfully complained about how bad the quality of The Mtn.'s graphics are, but it turns out that you could easily see all the graphics. Not only that, but the video clips all flowed together.
Graphics Grade:
A
Analysis:
The Analysis was in my opinion more in-depth then anything I have ever seen on College Football Live. Many people on College Football Live always seem to stay broad when expressing their opnions and not explain why they think someone will win any deeper than what most of us fans know. Everyone seemed to use stats to back up their side ofthe argument when it came to who was going to win the specific game being talked about and that is definitely something to applaud.
Analysis Grade:
A+
Quality of Interview Questions:
There was no interviews in this show, just roundtable discussion.
Smoothness of Show:
Unlike during halftime shows, pre-game and post-game shows on The Mtn, everyone's conversation seemed to flow together. There was no issues with someone stuttering and not knowing what to say and all the videos moved in and out very efficiently.
Smoothness of Show Grade:
A+
Let's take another look at that rubric, this time with the grades:
| Graphics | How well the graphics look. i.e. how good are the video clips, do they have good statistics, do the graphics stand out? | A |
| Analysis | How much does the analysis make sense? Does it seem like the analysts are saying something you and I have already come up with or is it something that's new? | A |
| Quality of Interview Questions | Are they questions that everyone is wondering or are they meaningless? | C- |
| Smoothness of Show | How smooth is the transition between camera angles, in and out of commercials and graphics? | B+ |
Final Grade:
A (Just on the verge of A+)
Alright, so this show was freaking awesome! Best show I've seen yet (which isn't saying much). Around the Mountain feels a lot like College Football Live, but better. There is no bias towards BCS conferences (Although there is bias towards the MWC, i.e. "Air Force and Georgia Tech are 1st and 2nd rushing the football but I give Air Force the edge just because Georgia Tech plays in the ACC and the ACC is well, ACC football"), and they only talk about topics that actually are interesting. For instance, today's show consisted of three bowl previews (Utah-BSU, AFA-GT, SDSU-Navy), a look at the screw-up in the BCS Standings and some insight on it, and talk of what Hawaii brings to the Mountain West and whether or not the MWC should expand further. It was a very interesting show with tons of analysis.
A note is that Around The Mountain will probably change from a football-centric show to a basketball-centric show after bowl season is over and that this show is shown weekly although the date and time varies each week. One cool thing they do is each week they bring in a guest analyst via video conference and provide different perspective each show. I would reccomend this show to any casual MWC fan just as I would reccomend College Football Live to any casual BCS conference fan.
Follow Mountain West Connection via Twitter and Facebook for News Quick Hits and Random Nonsense.
Follow rebelfan1_ via Twitter for News on UNLV.